Decisions

As our public schools crumble, our planet fries, our poor sleep on the streets, our children are trained (once again) to hide beneath their school desks, and our country becomes increasingly aligned with the most wicked institutions of the planet, do we pause to wonder? Why do those with the most unworthy intents possess the most wealth to carry out those intents. Why are the truly righteous silent? Why do the godly perish while the wicked run free?

We have, over the years, printed untold tons of literature aimed at answering the simple question of why bad things happen to good people. Each time we bury someone who died of cancer too early in life, or see the newsreel shot of a casket bearing a young child slaughtered at her school, or witness an innocent neighborhood destroyed by drugs or a tornado, we ask why a merciful deity allowed it.

“His ways ain’t our ways,” a film character answers. The Galilean phrased it more eloquently in the Gospel of Matthew 5:45 as the spoke it from the sermon on the Mount.

“[Be] the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (KJV)

Well there you have it. A city in Texas receives more than 40 inches of rain while people die of thirst and hunger in Asia. “His ways ain’t our ways,” say those from dry, clean rooms on full stomachs. What then, was the Galilean doing from that immortal spot in Judea? Was he just fooling with us? His ways, after all, ain’t our ways, are they? Don’t we identify more with the voice from Proverbs 11:10, where the elders say, “When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth; and when the wicked perish, there is shouting?”

Sometimes, these days, all we have to do is turn on the TV and we can watch portions of America shouting with unrestrained joy when things go well with the wicked while the righteous, along with our beloved planet, face perishing.

Maybe the Galilean wasn’t simply saying, “his ways ain’t our ways.” Perhaps the most famous sermon ever uttered was all about decisions.

Yes, it might have been about making up our minds to do right. There are what we tend to call “decision points” all through the sermon. Some are transcendent in their pure beauty, like when he tells is who is blessed. Some make us uneasy, like the expanded definition of adultery, broadened to include our very thoughts. (So long, Scarlett.) Some are fairly simple: “That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20) Yes, it would be nigh onto impossible not to exceed the righteousness of a Joel Osteen, wouldn’t it?

It goes on and on, this sermon, exhorting us at each step to face and make decisions some of which include, in equal portions, discomfort and righteousness. Perhaps we might better understand if we included one last phrase. How about the following?

“His ways ain’t easy, are they?”

“The day when rain falls is as great

 as he day on which heaven and

earth were created” – The Talmud